Nice & Niche Book Awards of 2024
Art is subjective; awards are nonsense.
It’s the last day of the year, and thus time to unveil the second annual Nice & Niche Book Awards.
Why nice? Insulting art on the internet is risky in my line of work. Even if I hated a book, that doesn’t mean I don’t want to work on the TV adaptation. Sometimes the show is better.
Why niche? The categories are new; the rubric is inconsistent. Don’t worry about it. My circus, my monkeys.
Reflecting on my year of reading, I’ve realized…
I love beginnings more than endings.
If you asked me to (anonymously, of course) rate a book when I’m 25% into it, I’d give a lot of A’s. I’d be like that teacher at my high school who everyone joked graded papers by throwing them up her stairs. The heavy, longer papers landed on one stair and got A’s. The lighter ones fluttered to a lower step and got lower grades to match. I never had this teacher, but her staircase grading system was infamous. Once my friend Rachel slapped an essay against the locker we shared. “Can you believe this?” she said, pointing at her grade, an A+. “Good job!” I said. “No, not good job,” Rachel said. “I wrote an A- paper! She didn’t even read it.”
I love the way books start and build and captivate. But can they deliver? Are all 455 pages necessary? This year, I read three books that ended with the same narrative device, where most of the book is told from one person’s perspective, and then the last chapter is unexpectedly told from another character’s perspective. In one case, this floored me. In another, it shook me to my core. In the third, it invalidated the first 90% of the book and annoyed me to no end.I hate romance!
Kidding! I love love. But sometimes everyone’s raving about a book with a really cute cover and a fun premise that sounds like it would’ve made a lovely romcom starring Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant in 2003. I like laughing! I like love! I like friends-to-lovers, enemies-to-lovers, AND ex-lovers-to-lovers! So I start reading, and at first, of course, I’m having fun. And then I realize I’ve been swindled! This book isn’t funny, nor is it a clever, innovative romp! I slog through the predictable dreck, finally reaching an epilogue about how the couple is happy together forever and ever. But I don’t want them to be happy! I want my time back!I like thrillers!
Based on the above point, you may think I’m an insufferable snob who hates formulaic storytelling. Au contraire! Formulaic thrillers still work for an insufferable snob like me.
Without further ado, the Nice & Niche Book Awards of 2024. The eligible books are the 52 books I read this year, which are a secret between me, my 12 friends on Goodreads, and, incidentally, Jeff Bezos.
Best Book I DIDN’T Know Was About Drugs
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Wow. I read this book and was stunned that Barbara Kingsolver breathes the same air as the rest of us mortals. How can she write this well? In this specific character’s cadence and voice and dialect? She had a little story help from Charles Dickens, as this is a modern day retelling of David Copperfield, but nevertheless… Stunning, incredible, wonderful. I somehow didn’t realize this book is about the opioid crisis or how many needles would be poked, pills taken, or lives ruined. It was dark. But I loved it.
Best Book I DID Know Was About Drugs
Loved and Missed by Susie Boyt
I knew what I was getting into with this one, and I have no regrets! Loved and Missed is a heartbreaking story about a mother, her drug addicted daughter, and her granddaughter. The pain of loving someone who can’t reciprocate and won’t change. Beautifully written and wonderfully sad.
Best Book Translated from Japanese
Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami
I read a handful of novels by Japanese authors early this year, before and during my trip to Japan in February. This was my favorite. Unpredictable, varied storytelling with pathos galore. Art! Fertility! Women! Ovaries! Beer!
Funniest Grammar Book
The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White
Yo. This book about grammar HITS. More laughs than some so-called “rom com” books and way shorter.
Best Gateway Book for a Reluctant Reader Who Is My Jewish Husband
This year I convinced my husband to read three books with me. The other two were about cats — including a bizarre graphic novel in which the cat dies on the last page. The Jewish Joke is a bit academic and wordy, but the jokes are great.
And my husband book agenda? Thanks for asking, it’s going quite well. He just read one of my favorite books, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb, and in fact told me a few times that he didn’t want to talk because he had to read. I’ve created an adorable monster!
Got anything Nice & Niche to add from your own reading list? Comment below, if so!
Happy New Year.
Read last year’s awards:
Also, that cover photo! 🥰
This makes me want to read all of these (and re-read the one I read ;)
I can think of a rather iconic older movie that did the "last chapter from a different perspective thing" first. Interesting when literature imitates film and not the other way around, no?